February 16, 2026
Peekaboo coding, anyone?
Anthropic tries to hide Claude's AI actions. Devs hate it
Devs rage as Claude hides its moves — “stop dumbing it down”
TLDR: Anthropic changed Claude Code to hide which files it touches, pushing details behind a toggle; devs say transparency is essential for catching mistakes and avoiding costs. The commentariat roasted the “simplified” UI and rejected the new verbose mode, demanding visible file paths or threatening to switch tools.
Claude Code, Anthropic’s AI helper for programmers, tried to go “minimalist” by hiding which files it touches behind a collapsed summary like “Read 3 files.” The developer community exploded. Strongest mood? Trust is toast if you hide the receipts. People say file names are essential for catching mistakes, keeping projects safe, and stopping runaway token costs (think paid AI minutes) before the bill spikes.
Anthropic’s Boris Cherny jumped in to say it’s not a “vibe coding” gimmick but a cleaner view so users focus on what matters. He pointed to a revamped “verbose mode” as the fix. The crowd: nope. The meme of the thread became “show more info by showing less,” while others joked it’s drifting toward GitHub Actions-style black boxes. One commenter warned this encourages “never-look-at-the-code” lock-in; another suggested a hacker-y workaround: watch the filesystem and spy on Claude’s moves. A few recommended alternatives like OpenCode, but most stayed to vent.
Supporters of the condensed view were basically invisible. The fight is bigger than UI: transparency vs. agentic AI. As Claude gets more independent and runs longer, devs want glass walls, not tinted windows. Community verdict? If AI keeps hiding, people start walking—and taking their budgets with them.
Key Points
- •Anthropic’s Claude Code v2.1.20 collapsed file activity details into summarized messages, hiding filenames by default.
- •Developers objected, citing security, context control, auditing needs, and token cost management as reasons to show filenames.
- •Boris Cherny said the change aims to reduce noise and focus on diffs and bash/MCP outputs; Anthropic’s developers reportedly favored this.
- •In response to feedback, verbose mode was repurposed to show file paths for reads/searches while omitting other detailed outputs.
- •Claude Code will maintain the condensed default view; no indication was given that it will revert to the previous, more verbose behavior.